Anil Aggrawal's Internet Journal of Forensic Medicine and Toxicology

Volume 4, Number 2, July - December 2003

Book Reviews: Popular Books Section

(Page 2)

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 The Ethics of Human Cloning by Leon R. Kass and James Q. Wilson, Softcover, 5" x 7.5".
First edition, The AEI Press (Publisher for the American Enterprise Institute), c/o Publisher Resources Inc., 1224 Heil Quaker Blvd., P.O. Box 7001, LaVergne, TN 37086-7001: Publication Date September 1998.:122 Pages: 5.25" x 7.5": ISBN 0-8447-4050-0: Price $16.95 cloth

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Leon R. Kass  Leon R. Kass is the Addie Clark Harding Professor in the Committee on Social Thought and the College of the University of Chicago. He is the author of Toward a More Natural Science: Biology and Human Affairs and The Hungry Soul: Eating and the Perfecting of Our Nature. Professor Kass is an adjunct scholar of the American Enterprise Institute. In this book, Dr. Kass presents arguments against cloning in part I, and rebutts the arguments of his adversary Dr. Wilson in part II. James Q. Wilson  James Q. Wilson is the James A. Collins Professor of Management and Public Policy Emeritus at the University of California, Los Angeles. He is the author of Crime and Human Nature (with Richard J. Herrnstein), Thinking about Crime, On Character, The Moral Sense, and Moral Judgment. Professor Wilson is chairman of the Council of Academic Advisers of the American Enterprise Institute. In this book, Dr. Wilson presents arguments in favour of cloning in part I, and rebutts the arguments of his adversary Dr. Kass in part II.

When a person gives a speech, people listen to it and forget. When two men debate a point, people listen and form their views. The same principle has been applied in this book also. To think of such an idea and carry it out in the form of a book required a special effort and the author/s require special praise for that.

Human cloning is today a highly debatable topic especially after the successful (we won't call it totally successful though) cloning of Dolly the sheep. The lobby both in favour and against cloning is almost equally strong though a little in towards non-cloning. In this backdrop both Kass and Wilson have given reasons to go against or for cloning respectively. What makes this book different from others is that each author, after going through the other's view, has given a reply as to what he thinks about the other person's idea about the subject. This makes it a two-way dialogue between the two instead of just writing their personal preferences. This we think is the biggest achievement of this book.

Both Kass and Wilson have given various arguments to further their view. Some of those are valid points and some given just for the sake of argument. Things like development of incest between the donor/spouse and the child are never going to materialize. Still we feel both have been very authentic and authoritative in their arguments. Both have given suitable examples to illustrate their thoughts. We think both the authors have done a good job of compiling a sort of list of advantages and disadvantages of cloning. Anyone who does not have much idea about cloning can get to know about it by going through this book.

...When a person gives a speech, people listen to it and forget. When two men debate a point, people listen and form their views. The same principle has been applied in this book ...

The book can be very handy when someone has to discuss human cloning in various forums like debates, discussions, seminars etc. We had a live videoconference in the British Council, New Delhi on the same topic some time back (On 20^th January 2003 to be exact. It was called the café scientifique). In this conference, we interacted live with UK scientists. In this debate the knowledge gained from this book became very helpful. Since we had gone through this book, we were better prepared to ask questions and also answer any that were posed to us. This, for us, has been the most important use of the book till now.

We sincerely think that this book is a must for anyone who wants to know about cloning, make his views and present them somewhere. It is also a must for all those intellectuals who are in touch with what's going on in the world today and think that they may be of some help in deciding the future of mankind especially because human cloning is going to be debated vehemently if the report about human cloning turns out to be true. So we think this book is a good opportunity for everyone to know about cloning and contribute to this debate.

-Puneet Setia and Avneesh Gupta
Department of Forensic Medicine and Toxicology,
Maulana Azad Medical College,
New Delhi, India

Dr. Puneet Setia is working as a senior resident in the department of Forensic Medicine and Toxicology at Postgraduate Institute Of Medical Education And Research (PGIMER), Chandigarh. He did his graduation from Maulana Azad Medical College (MAMC), New Delhi. His research interests include Forensic Radiology, especially the use of radiology in demonstrating coronary narrowing at the post-mortem examination. He is associated with Anil Aggrawal's Internet Journal of Forensic Medicine and Toxicology as a writer and book reviewer. He can be contacted at puneetsetia@rediffmail.com

Dr. Avneesh Gupta is a Senior Resident doctor in the department of Forensic Medicine and Toxicology at MAMC. His research interests include cranio-cerebral trauma. Dr. Gupta has written a very erudite thesis on cranio-cerebral trauma, which can be accessed by clicking here. He is associated with Anil Aggrawal's Internet Journal of Forensic Medicine and Toxicology as a writer and book reviewer. He can be contacted at avneeshgupta2000@yahoo.com

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-Anil Aggrawal

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